allthelidos (2025)

12/01/2025

It was -6 in London overnight, which meant the water in the docks that didn’t freeze dropped to minus 2.5. The wonderful team at broke the ice with their boat for us to enjoy a small dip and hold a big old lump of ice 🧊 ❄️

The entire dock seems to have frozen too — all the way up to the footbridge and beyond. In three years I’ve never seen anything like it, but oh my gosh how beautiful! Tysm to Steph and for keeping us safe 🩵

01/01/2025

I didn’t quite manage to make it the 12 pools of Christmas during my holiday, but I definitely swam more than 12 times across nine different pools, which I think is pretty good going among the festive chaos!

In no particular order, they were:

1️⃣ on Christmas Eve where I was so taken with the incredible purple colour of the sky. We had to pack so much into Christmas Eve, it was a proper treat to be able to fit this in.

2️⃣ started off 2025 in a very warm fashion for our New Year’s Day swim, with what I strongly believe is the best lido Christmas tree. As soon as I arrived, I no longer regretted the 90-minute journey.

3️⃣ made several appearances, which is always a treat in winter as we often miss out due to mainly being evening swimmers. In particular, our New Year’s Eve followed by .cafe was gorgeous.

4️⃣ We also managed to squeeze in the last session of the year , which was bitterly cold thanks to the wind! In the end, we had to shuffle up in the dipping area for safety.

5️⃣ We also made several visits to in all weathers. One day, as the last ones in they removed the lane ropes so we swam a diagonal across the 50m pool, a luxurious feeling!

6️⃣ And then our annual Christmas Day swim , which has become somewhat of a tradition! I definitely don’t visit this place enough.

7️⃣ Boxing Day was time for , who were serving mulled wine and had the warmest shower room I’ve ever been in — some were saying it was warmer than the sauna itself!

8️⃣ Can’t miss our old favourite either; a surprisingly chilled out betwixmas session, despite being on a Saturday.

9️⃣ And, finally, where it all began — a glorious full moon swim on our first weekend after finishing work. Full reel to come on this one!

14/12/2024

I’ve been lack at posting, thanks to my pesky degree, but I’ve not been slacking on new swimming! This was a gorgeous birthday swim at a couple of weeks ago. Don’t be fooled by the empty pool, this session was absolutely rammed, which is always a delight to see in winter.

This pool really is a delight; you get a cute little basket to keep all your stuff dry on the side, there’s hot Vimto aplenty for chilly swimmers, and the lifeguards are attentive and helpful.

It’s a smaller pool, clocking in at 21 metres long, but they’ve made some clever choices with seating to make it feel bigger than it is and allow space for relaxing. The site also claims to be the oldest pool in Devon!

If you happen to be in the area tomorrow, December 15, is their last swim of the year, so head along with your Christmas hat 🧑‍🎄

20/10/2024

What. A. Treat. If you haven’t made your way to Albert Avenue Pools and Fitness yet, this is your call to do so. I’d especially recommend a sunset session, where the colours really pop 🌅

This was reopened last year, following an £11 million refurbishment and a grand reveal that included a giant game of hook a duck. I was really taken by the quotes from the council at the time, who made it clear across multiple interviews that they believed these sorts of capital investment are vital for healthy communities and aren’t just a ‘nice to have’.

Speaking in in 2020, Daren Hale, then deputy leader of Hull City Council, said: “I know that at this time some of this may seem a bit fanciful - almost like we’re talking about a bygone age - but the good times will return and we’ve got to give people hope that, when they do come back, there will be things to enjoy. We’ve been quite clear that you build yourself out of a potential recession, you don’t build yourself into one. We’re not pausing because we believe the time to invest is now, so that people have better times to look forward to.”

The pool — which was packed — is now open for cool water swims several times a week.

29/08/2024

Disgustingly hard to try and pick the best picture of last night as it’s just too pretty at sundown. Scroll for a bird 🦢

28/08/2024

Where did you spend your Bank Holiday Monday? We checked into our 11th new pool of the year at and it’s next to an actual castle 🏰

This is very much a campsite pool, so is a little on the shallow side and not one for lengths, but the water was crystal clear, heated, and full of people having a great time. It also had the cleanest shower room I’ve ever seen and I’ve included a photo for proof.

Bookings for the pool are all done online and each slot lasts for two hours — though when we booked the terms and conditions tick box is a white tick on a white background so you may have to squint a bit.

This is the perfect location if you’re looking to lounge around for an afternoon; there are ample seats overlooking the water and drinks to buy. Entry to the pool is through a shallow set of steps or you can just slide in over the side.

There’s also on site, top-tier family attraction, and if you time the tides right you can swim in the harbour afterwards — aim for a few hours around low tide and you can swim out to the private beach around the corner. It might not look like a swimming spot, but push past the boats and you’ll be rewarded.

Our final recc for the afternoon is the Storm in a Teacup boat cafe for a hot chocolate!

26/08/2024

‘‘Twas a dark and stormy night and we only made the tides and sunset 🌊 🌅

24/08/2024

Friday night summer treats ✨🪩

01/08/2024

We’re aiming for 30 new swim spots this year and we’ve officially made it to a third of the way now, with this very much shot of Woodgreen Leisure Centre in May, which is our tenth new pool this year.

This one has long been on my list for purely aesthetic reasons; I used to live in Wood Green in London and it felt only right in ticked this one off the list.

Nomenclature aside, this place is well worth a visit, with a huge 50m pool with eight lanes (and a flume slide) that’s heated by solar power. As you swim, you can see the solar water panels on the roof of the building, and it’s quite cool to think that the water you’re swimming through also passed through the roof.

Previously known as Banbury Outdoor Pool, the pool originally opened in 1939 and made it all the way to 2002 before shutting due to maintenance problems. Thankfully, a campaign by 10,000 residents saw it reopen in 2009; and were so glad it did.

19/07/2024

Stumbling across on its opening weekend a couple of months ago was the best surprise we could have hoped for in May. As the very last outdoor swimming pool we had to tick off, it’s been on our list for a while; little did we know that we’d picked opening weekend and they’d successfully lobbied to open the season earlier this year.

We were treated to an incredibly friendly team, blazing sunshine, and some absolutely sparkling lane ropes — a personal favourite of mine, you can swipe to the second slide to see them in all their glory. Oh yes, and there was also free cake to celebrate opening too!

This is a 25-metre pool that’s heated in the summer, but we joined for a cool swim — the lower costs meant the centre was able to open earlier. This is a small pool with such a big heart and it might be our favourite so far this year; if you can, do pay a visit this season 🩵

For us, in our lopsided fashion of late posting, this is the ninth new swim spot of the year!

12/07/2024

What are the chances that the day we decided to visit was also the day they’d tagged us in a story encouraging people to visit?!

This truly is a gorgeous place; there’s an almost chalky looks to the water, but it feels incredibly silky and fresh thanks to being fed by the River Teign.

It was hand dug by locals who wanted a place for children to swim without bothering the local fishermen and their catch; it’s been open to the public 1933, as should it ever cease to be an open-access swimming pool, it would return to the landowner

It’s a truly beautiful spot and really was the warmest of welcomes; we spent such a long time just chatting to the team on duty. Also full marks to the exceedingly well-stocked merchandise shop where I found… one of the original towels I’ve only ever seen on Twitter! Which really did made my summer.

I’m all out of order on my posts, but for the sake of counting, this is the seventh new pool to the grid this year; almost a third of the way to target 💪

06/07/2024

Working through my backlog of swim photos after a month away from the grid and I simply have to share the clouds at Canary Wharf first. Look at the clouds!!

05/07/2024

🚨 Hurry! Entries to this year’s Summer Challenge end in just 14 days🚨

If you’ve been on the fence, it’s almost your last chance; join us for an adventure across the UK’s incredible outdoor pools, docks, reservoirs, tidal pools, and more. You’ll be supporting the lido sector, finding new adventures, and taking home up to six beautiful sew-on badges, just like you had at swim school.

There are six badges to collect: three depending on how many spots you swim at and three bespoke challenges to inspire you to see something new. Any human-made, outdoor swim spot counts and you can count any swim during . So, yes, you can backdate it!

Grab your entry in the link in our bio now — and tell a friend who shouldn’t miss out too!

07/06/2024

When you’ve had a rough day at work but is there to pick up the pieces 🌅

02/06/2024

🍟 The only thing that was missing from our trip to was that we couldn’t quite make it home in time for a chippy tea, which would have been thematically correct!

Opened in 1970, this is a small but perfectly-formed pool. You can only take photos from one spot, but you can just about see the pale green tiles that line the sides of the pool — and of which I was a big fan.

You’re only able to take photos from one angle here — in the other direction there’s a huge grassy area, trees and a cafe and it feels like you really could spend a whole day here.

06/05/2024

We KENT-pleted it! It was a dark and stormy bank holiday weekend afternoon — the kind you get most any summer bank holiday in the UK — so what better to do than tick off our final outdoor swimming pool in Kent.

I’m not quite sure why Tonbridge Outdoor Swimming Pool has eluded us for so long — it’s only an hour’s drive away, but we’ve always seemed to miss the season slightly when we’ve looked it up before. Which seems even more bizarre given the amazingly generous opening hours they have at the moment.

It may have been pretty gloomy when we visited, but the water was warm, the tiles upon entry were jazzy, and there were some great buckets that fill up and splash over your head.

There’s a lot going on here in a small space — a 20m length pool, a shallow beach style splash area (with the all important buckets) and decent amounts of grassy areas to sit and lounge in better weather. It was great to see so many people flow in and out from the indoor pool over the course of an hour — from serious length swimmers to families here for a splash. If I had this next door to me, I’d feel very lucky indeed!

This makes for our fifth new swim spot this year — only another 25 to go to hit my perhaps wildly ambitious target to get into triple figures 😳

01/05/2024

IT’S FINALLY TIME!! Light when I started my eight o’clock swim, still not dark when I ended it! 😍

03/02/2024

It seems like January has disappeared in the blink of an eye, and I’ve barely had a chance to breathe. But, a month late, I’m finally taking a look back at what I managed to achieve in 2023. All in all, I managed to clock up another 25 UK swim spots last year — which I don’t think is too shabby considering I spent all of July cycling and doesn’t include some gorgeous spots in Denmark and Greece.

Of those, 21 count towards my All The Lidos total — two were at Nowca venues where you have to pay a small annual fee to access them and another two were water parks rather than offering actual swimming sessions, so I don’t count them as free-to-access.

In total, I’ve got 161 lidos on my list and I’ve now ticked off 72, which is just under 45 per cent. My goal for 2024 is to smash both the 100 barrier and the 50 per cent mark. Any suggestions as to where should be top of the list?

📍Northcroft Lido
📍Somerset Swim Retreats
📍Fairlop Waters
📍Weston Marine Lake
📍Nantwich Brine Pool
📍Shap Swimming Pool
📍Woodup Pool
📍Sandford Parks Lido
📍Petersfield Lido
📍Ware Priory Lido
📍Wivey Pool
📍Pells Pool
📍Saltdean Lido
📍Sea Lanes Brighton
📍Droitwich Spa Lido
📍Tropicana Warm Sea Pools
📍Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool
📍Gourock
📍Lido Ponty
📍Bristol Lido
📍Cleveland Pools
📍Burgh Hall Outdoor Pool
📍Castle Sands Tidal Pool
📍Pendigo Lake
📍Splashdown, Poole

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